2012

Welcome back to Electoral Math. It's been a long 3+ years since I last posted here, but with the Republican primary season heating up, I thought it might be a good time to get started. It's a little too early to begin full projections for a whole host of reasons, first the challenger is yet to be determined and there aren't enough state-by-state polls for the likely nominees to project all states. That said, I'd like to take a look back to 2008.

Overall, my projection from 2008 held up very well. I picked all but one state correctly (Indiana) and I missed the 2nd district of Nebraska. Honestly, no one was projecting Nebraska to split its electoral votes, so there was no polling to support the question.

What I was most impressed with however was my popular vote projection. Using only state polls, I was able to project the gap between Pres. Obama and Sen. McCain within 0.02% the overall popular vote (7.28% projected vs. 7.26% actual). I slightly underestimated votes for other candidates, but none of the third party candidates played an important role in the election.

To see my 2008 projections, click the 2008 link on the right side of this page.

Thoughts so far in 2012:

Today is the Republican primary in South Carolina. Newt Gingrich in the last few days has been able to overtake Mitt Romney, who held a lead as large as 20 points in one poll only 5 days ago. Polls released this morning show Gingrich ahead by as much 13, a stunning turnaround.

There are 4 candidates left in the race with Mitt Romney in the lead followed by Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. My inclination based on the tone of the race right now is that if either Santorum or Gingrich leave the race, it will likely be very good for the remaining candidate of the two. Romney hasn't been able to captivate the conservative base of the party and Paul, while doing considerably this time around, his libertarian views aren't likely to pick up most of those votes. If Gingrich wins tonight, which it appears he's going to do, it looks to me like the Republican nomination could be unsettled for quite a while. That said, if both Gingrich and Santorum are able to stay in the race through Super Tuesday, I would expect that it will be very good news for Romney. Otherwise, I think the survivor of Gingrich & Santorum has a legitimate shot at becoming the nominee.